Rating: 
Summary: Almost Everything You Could Want
Review: The quality of the 26x zoom is incredible, and even the lower powers of digital zoom that this camera has are incredible. Imagine being able to clearly read 3pt type from 15 feet away on the viewfinder. And that's just the beginning.Unpacking the box, I found out that I was glad that I'd purchased a USB smartmedia reader. The only cables supplied were the standard dubbing cables and a serial transfer cable. Standard serial transfer being slow as it is was not an option. That cable is now stashed collecting dust. The camera was easy to set up and get running right away. I popped the 8mb smartmedia card in its slot, the battery in it's little hideout, and a new blank tape in the tape compartment. The single hardest thing was figuring out how to attach the lens cap to the hand strap. Velcro is your friend (the hand strap pad velcroes shut over the strap adjustment, by undoing the strap pad, you slip the cap cord onto the strap. A very neat, if unintuitive, design) Still pictures: 640x480 is limiting, but I mostly use this for web work and don't like to publish anything much larger than this. I would like to have some extra area though to make sure I get everything and crop down. Quality is superb in good direct lighting, decent in low light or indirect light. Video Capture: Surprisingly clear. The camera, as with all such devices, makes a good webcam if you have the right interface hardware. I use a WinTV card for vid capture and discovered that the 450 will 'follow' action around if you leave it still on the tripod. Good for those people with a cam setup that move around a lot. It will automatically pan within its scan area just a few degrees to each side, but enough, usually, if set up correctly. VCR Mode: A neat feature that I was totally unaware that the machine had until I got it home. If you plug the 'output' ports in so that they're receiving information instead of sending it, you can record on the camera like a VCR. All in all: I'd recommend this little cam. My only complaint was being limited to 640x480 on still pictures. Cabling was standard and not unexpected. Optics and zoom are exceptional, 26x optical zoom is a big plus. IR and zero-light features are great. Still pictures, though limited in size, can fit 500-1500 depending on quality on a 64mb SM card. 4 1/2 stars
Rating:
Summary: Good Camcorder for the money.
Review: I read the other reviews prior to purchasing this camcorder. When it arrived I was very happy with the construction and feel of the unit. It did not feel flimsy or anything else. This is a camcorder, it's not a ball and yes you do have to treat it like a camcorder. It is sturdy but I'm not sure how well any camcorder would do if it fell off a table or something. The sound quality is very good from this unit and the picture quality is also good. I did notice that as the light level got worse the picture quality became more grainy. The image stabilization will not do you any good if you plan on zooming in on your subject so for that I suggest using a tripod. One nice feature is the ability to switch to 16 bit sound so you get better sound recording than the default 12 bit. Also you can switch to the LP tape speed mode and because it is digital you loose zero picture or sound quality which means you can get more recording on the itty bitty DV tapes. The built in still camera takes decent pictures and with the 26x optical zoom you can really get in tight! I film my daughter who is a cheerleader in high school from all the way up in the back row and I can zoom in so tight that all that is in the picture is her face and thats from more than half a basketball court away! Save yourself some money and pick this one, it will do what you need it to do and more!
Rating:
Summary: Great camecorder for beginners, full of great features
Review: I did a lot of research before settling on this digital camcorder. It has everything one would want from a digital camcorder and for a very good price. I have been particularly impressed with the 26X optical zoom Canon lens which comes with this unit. The LCD monitor is sharp and brilliant in color. In addition, this camcorder includes plenty of features most notably, an IEEE 1394 port, S-Video output, and a remote control. I also think the menu system is very easy to use despite many reviews I read which indicated otherwise. In fact, this camera is so easy to use I did not have to read the manual in order to figure out many of the camcorder's features. Now to the important stuff. The video quality is great but make sure your environment has plenty of light. I find that when I shoot indoors the natural light is not enough in some instances. The same goes for the digital still pictures. The quality is decent. But if you are looking for great pictures go with a digital camera product. It is nice that this camcorder includes the digital still camera but let's not forget it is a camcorder first. My only complaints on this product are as follows:
The camcorder is a little bigger and heavier than most competing Mini DVs. However, it's still smaller than the average camcorder.
I do not like the SmartMedia card. It has only 8MB of memory. I would have preferred a compact flash card or SD memory.
The worst feature is that the camcorder connects to the PC via a serial connector. I am not sure why Sharp did not include a USB connector. To download pictures from the camcorder to the PC takes some time via the serial connector. Overall, it is a great Mini DV camcorder for a first time buyer and it's competitively priced. I am very happy with this purchase.
Rating: 
Summary: GET AN EXTENDED WARRANTEE
Review: Get the extended warrantee. Maybe you'll be okay if you buy this camcorder without the warrantee, maybe you won't. I purchased this camcorder over a year ago. I have used 4 Maxell Mini DVC since the purchase. Two of those tapes had less than 10 minutes of record time before I started getting the infamous red "X" and the "EJECT THE CASSETTE". Of course the last time this happened, I was on vacation visiting far away family and the camcorder completely froze. I returned this product to the service center of Best Buy. It was out for 6 weeks for repair, covered under warrantee. However, I didn't have my camera for another important event--my son's first birthday party. Finally, my camera was returned to me, and I was informed the drum housing was completely replaced. In addition, there was a note attached to the camera from the Sharp Manufacturer's repair center that told me to ONLY USE SHARP DVC's. I have not seen a SHARP brand DVC, and the salesperson at Best Buy hadn't heard of one either. I can't find online or at Sharp-usa.com. I've emailed their customer support, so we'll see what happens. From what I've read here on amazon.com, others have had luck with Panasonic or JVC. I'm currently trying out a Fuji and keeping my fingers crossed. The camera is easy to use and the features are fine for me, although I wish the still camera produced better quality hard copy photos--oh yeah, and it would be nice if it were reliable too. After this last fiasco, and the complaints I have seen from others, I would highly recommend getting the extended warrantee if available. Otherwise, shop around some more and find one that isn't so untrustworthy and has better still camera features.
Rating: 
Summary: The Sharp VLWD450U is a great camera for the price.
Review: I have had this camera since February 2002 and have not had a problem with mine. From reading reviews on the internet it appears there are some these cameras that have had some problems. All I can say is mine works great. It has a clear picture and sound. I use the accessory zoom microphone and have the sound set at 16 bits. The lens is a Canon lens which I understand is a high quality lens. I also like the smart card feature for taking digital still pictures. You can choose between three resolutions for the still pictures. The camera has a feature called a "super cat's eye" which switches the camera into a black and white mode and you can take video in complete darkness as the camera uses an infrared beam of light to illuminate the video being taken. The camera has a firewire terminal and also there are rca jacks on the back of the camera for if you want to record a vhs tape into digital video. For all the features that this camera has and for the price, I believe it is a very good buy.
Rating:
Summary: Fair if it works.
Review: It looks like there is some design issue with the camera's playback as some other people have also reported the same problem. It records the images but it is very picky about playing it! It happened to me a few times but at this point it simply refuses to play any recording and displays only blue screen as if the tape is empty. I will be returning it back to Amazon for a full refund. But whenever it decides to play, the picture quality is very good in good light but very bad at night even in well lit rooms. 780X digital zoom is completely useless. 26X optical zoom is good but at near 26X, the camera shakes are very noticible. The camera is very bulky which doesn't show in the pictures. The menu system is easy to operate as opposed to what you might think after reading some reviews. But the "cursor keys" are very tight and a lot of force is needed to trigger a key press. Both the LCD and viewfinder have very low resolution and poor colors. The viewfinder almost has no color saturation and is extremely small. Like I said, the video quality is good for 460,000 CCD but by recommendation is to stay away from this camcorder unless Sharp fixes the playback problem.
Rating: 
Summary: Tape disaster- Sharp has worst customer service
Review: All of the negative reviews of this product are true. It eats tapes, or makes them unusable at a certain point. I, too, was under warranty when this started to happen (after the first tape!). I had to send to to NY, and had to pay for the labor, which was half the price of the camera. When it finally came back, it did the same thing. I don't even know where to go with the lemon laws for this one.
Rating:
Summary: good video and audio quality
Review: although this camcorder is a bit larger than most minidv camcorders now, it is not bulky and the recording quality is really nice. the zoom mic is really a bonus. I've been using it for almost three years without any problems. the only problem I had was "eject the tape" messages, after the dv tape gets stuck. Some shaking of the tape helps but not always. I assume this might be because of the tape rather than the camcorder.
Rating:
Summary: disappointing
Review: too low quality From the beginning, the quality of the record is too low. I can't watch most of the time after recorded.
Rating:
Summary: AWESOME!! GREAT QUALITY, BATTERY LIFE, CONNECTIVITY
Review: People don't realize but this camera is one the best products in terms of value. It's nice size, light, and it let's you both input and out put composite and DV, so you can convert analog video to DV extremely easily. I even sometimes transfer DVD's to tapes so i can watch them on the road either on the large LCD screen or connecting it to the hotel TV.
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